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For those of you following allow, this is chapter 8 in my “book.” This was one chapter I had yet to write, so I’m doing it now.

If I had a dollar for every time I wrote about love…Where to start. Love is a necessary evil. A villain and a hero. It is the best of the best but it can strike us down where we stand. Love is a power struggle. An irreverent battle that can never really be won. Or at least sometimes it feels that way. Having to believe that LOVE in its entirety is the sole topic that has been written about the most in human history I still have to take my own approach. Here goes.

I’ve been in love twice in my life and neither one was anything like I expected. Both had their very good and very bad moments. Both had moments of sheer elation and sheer devastation. To me, love encompasses everything we know this world to be. It is an exchange of energy for another soul – human being – that you can’t quite explain, for the emotion of it all takes logic completely out of the picture.

The first time I fell in love, I was so stuck on my feelings of what you gave me and the way you treated me that you were my favorite person in the world. And like everything else in my life, you never stayed. Granted that wasn’t either of our faults – we were kids and we went where our parents took us. Which ironically is probably the only reason we ever ended up where we did later in life. You were the one that got away, yet you were the one who came back. The one that just let me be when no one else even cared to stand with me. You chose me time after time and I never once understood why. We needed each other in the chaos, yet we were so consistently inconsistent neither one of us knew how to stay. We declared our love in the most unconventional way as that was how we knew how to be; now looking back it fits “us” to a tee. We spent most of the last ten years sleeping together and always constantly going back to each other and never taking it any further. Crazy fly by night whirlwind of emotions that neither one of us could ever admit and when we did everything went to hell. Never truly belonging to the other yet still knowing how to be vulnerable and still knowing what it feels to be safe within the madness. We provided for each other something I don’t think either of us really made sense of – ever. You were the one I could be innocent and safe with. The one that let me be all kinds of me with and knew with a look on my face what I was going to do next. Feeling like we never really knew each other in daily lives because one of us was always leaving, we knew at the core of our existence who the other was and that was enough. You were my first love and you were meant to be. It really is that simple.

I think I loved you from the moment I really met you: my second love. You saw me when I thought I was invisible. A connection, a passion and a lust I had yet to ever realize could exist. So toxic, so raw, so fantastical. Another never knowing where I stand grey area sort of romance, I don’t think either of us expected to end up where we did. Never knowing where the other would be yet finding each other anyways. Both of us not knowing what we had really gotten into, we flew by the seat of our pants and let things happen as they may. Soon enough we were hanging out 3 or 4 days a week. Going out, partying, eating, drinking, exploring, having fun, learning about each other, sharing secrets, sharing ourselves, we didn’t really have any limits. Little did either of us know that we wouldn’t spend more than 3 weeks apart in a 5 year period. Little did we know that those we once considered best friends were now second to each other. That despite not having labels or actually being in a relationship “together,” we were attached. We needed and yearned to be close and I don’t think either of us really understood or cared to know why. I knew how I felt about you, but I also knew you. I knew “trapping” you wasn’t going to work and making you do something you didn’t want wasn’t going to work either. The last thing I wanted to do was change you because you were who I loved. I loved the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, I was all in. I was invested. And to a certain point so were you. After about a year of this you told me you loved me. You told me there was no one like me. We went on for years hanging out and living adventures. Keeping a balance for each other so the other didn’t fly too far off the hinges. So much better together than we ever were apart. Constantly making each other crazy, but always in need of that presence. As time passed the more people noticed. Always together, always around, could always find each other in a crowd. But sure enough it didn’t last. I revealed my truth. My feelings. And you couldn’t. Always together but never really knowing where we stood. Always unyielding to the other, always struggling for control. We broke what we had and who we were in every way possible. Even after we broke it we still yearned for the togetherness that would never exist as it once had. Now strangers to each other those two people existed a lifetime ago. But the memories and the loves of our lives never really leave us. Not really.

Present day: the time I’m currently working on the relationship I have with myself. This is the time of my relationship I have with my love of knowledge and pursuit of passions within. I was once told by a psychic that two men from my past would come back into my life, both would ask me to marry them and I would have to choose. If those two men are loves 1 & 2… then I choose me. I’ve gone through the trials and tribulations of a relationship without actually being allowed to be in one. Or at least in a defined one. And maybe that’s my fault for allowing it but maybe it isn’t because I loved two guys that have yet to love anyone the way we loved each other. That may be me fantasizing again but it’s how I feel. Love is everything in life and a lot of it starts with where you care for yourself.

From loving yourself to loving others you have to find where you fall before completely losing yourself in the abyss that can exist when a love is unrequited or no longer exchanged. Finding what you want from life achieving happiness through love can only be something achieved when you have a good enough relationship with yourself because when you’re being vulnerable with yourself and truthful with yourself you can admit the wants and needs you have and work at them. Whether that may or may not be the best thing to do in certain situations is for you to decide. Extending yourself or your hand to be able to love someone comes with great responsibility. The more of yourself you give, the more you have to lose. That’s why they call it a heart – break. When you break a dish and you glue it back together there are still cracks. You have to fill the cracks and the missing pieces to become whole again and sometimes that takes time and sometimes we never truly fill the cracks; at least not in ways we might expect.

For how does one define love? Is it a state? Is it a feeling? Is it more than that? A friend of mine defined love as “caring about someone so deeply it’s almost more about them than yourself.” That lead me to ask – is love an act? Act of kindness, act of faith? If love were a person what would they look like? Do they have ten fingers/toes.. are they bruised and broken? Are they whole? How would they act? What would they do? Are they the best looking person you’ve ever seen or is it different? Is it a level of perfection that just can’t be explained? What about love as a concept vs to love as a verb? Love to me isn’t love to you… the way you think and define it isn’t the same for me. They may be similar, but what makes you recognize it when its there? It’s a lot to think about, but love seems to be the effort you unknowingly give to someone else… Just as we can all love people, we can all love places, activities, things, the list goes on… sometimes we need to give love to ourselves.

Without love where does the world go? Without love – passionate, unrequited, reciprocated or otherwise, will we ever stop agonizing over it love – what comes next? Should we stop? Or should we open the door to those who need it most and try to figure out why? Where is the love?

For those following along, or those new to the blog this is Chapter 7. To read from the beginning start with “Revisiting Perspective.”

Passion can be applied to almost anything in any form. You can for instance be a passionate lover or friend. You can be passionate about a sport, working out, or a hobby like collecting. You can be passionate about certain causes such as To Write Love on Her Arms or the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. You can be passionate about life itself. You can show passion in almost anything you do because even when you just automatically do something there is still some type of driving force behind why you are doing it in the first place. Not everything is done in the name of passion but not everything is just done because it has to be. For example I’m pretty sure no one is passionate about paying their bills, but they have to pay them if they want to keep living in that way.

Passion, like anything else is not always a good thing; it is a constant obsession with something. When thinking about passion it isn’t as black and white as good and bad. Passion can result in many good things for others or for yourself. Passion can also cause harm. Passion has the potential to make people do crazy things. It has the potential for greatness as well as the potential for mass destruction. Passion has flaws and potential. It can be energetic or dormant. It can be the driving force behind all you believe to be good and have faith in this world; faith of any kind. Faith in other humans, in family, in friends, in yourself, in an action, in a story, in a love you just don’t understand enough yourself to be able to explain. Your reason for really living or not. Your reason for doing anything, everything, or nothing. The reason you are the way you are. With passion or the lack of passion, you can understand the events, choices and decisions you’ve made in your life. Passion isn’t unintelligent nor is it pure intelligence. It can be a gut reaction or thorough planning. It can be completely thought out or left to chance.

I’ve come across a few people in my life that show passion in almost everything they do. They live, breathe and feel for others. They do things with full force and attention 100 percent of the time. They live their lives by and through their relationships with others. If something happens to you, they not only try to relate to your pain but they experience it or seem to, just as you would yourself. This may not be easy to understand, or sound as if anyone in their right mind or anyone at all would in fact act this way, but you’d be surprised. Ghandi or Mother Theresa for example would be real life people who lived this way. People that devote their lives to a cause can be people that live their lives with passion as their driving force. Firm beliefs that any little bit that they do, can and will change the world and any attempt to make the world a better place can be an instance of passion. People with firm beliefs that their way is the best way and attempt to force them on society despite anyone else’s opinions or any facts are also people that live through passion.

Passion is like happiness. It is always there in some form whether you realize it or not. Whether you accept it or not. Like mentioned before you can be passionate about anything. Whether you’re a writer, an artist, a sports fan, a model car enthusiast, the richest man alive, the poorest man on the street, anyone, there is still passion within you. Passion can be applied to the things you do and it can make you who you are. You can form your life around the passion and devotion of others or you can devote passion to yourself. Neither is wrong, for life is what you make of it. But know that, no you did not get out of bed this morning out of passion, but maybe you watched your child’s sports game or school play. Maybe you had an argument with someone where you voiced your opinion. Maybe you went to the gym to try and stay or get into shape. Maybe you painted a picture. There are millions of things you can do that include passion.

Music also can evoke passion. Music can create a passion that you feel deep in your soul. Have you ever heard a song that just strikes you to the point where you just feel something that makes you want to belt out the lyrics at the top of your lungs? Whether it’d be for the sake of a single specific person or everyone you’ve ever known (I know I have)? Have you ever heard a song that moves you to tears or laughter or such joy and emotional lightness that you experience it, every time you hear that song? Music like many things is something that is thought provoking. Music isn’t always just a bunch of witless words being sung about all the time. You may not have written the song but it can still evoke emotion. You may not know what the writer of the song meant when they wrote it but it can still make you feel a certain way. Whether it is the actual words that touch you or the melody behind it, music is a powerful force.

In these senses it doesn’t seem that passion is by itself one single entity. It seems that it can be a plethora of things to anyone. Passion can be lost for things and found again. It can be stumbled upon when you least expect it. It can drive you to do things you may have never thought possible. But can you entirely and completely define it? It is more than pure emotion and it can exist and go along with other emotions as well. Personally, dance has been something I’ve done all my life and for the first time I find myself completely without what I’ve known and learned for almost two decades. Dance when I was younger was something I liked doing. But it wasn’t until I “lost” what I had that I realized I had a passion for it. Dance makes me feel in a way that other things just don’t. The adrenaline rush of being on stage, of hearing the music and feeling the movement within yourself is unlike anything else I’ve really experienced. But when I was in the midst of my dancing years I never looked at it that way. It was just something I did, something I liked. Now that I don’t get to dance like I used to and the reasons I dance aren’t entirely the same, I can honestly say I’m passionate about it.

With passion comes many things. It’s the emotion that drives us with intensity because of our deep desire to want and achieve – something. Anger, lust, happiness, devotion, love, the list continues. Passion is an interesting thing because like happiness, sometimes you have it and sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you find it, sometimes you lose it, sometimes you didn’t know it was there. Sometimes it drives you and sometimes it propels you in another direction. I’m sure that at some point of your life you’ve felt this way about something. You probably had something in mind the entire time you read this chapter. Something or maybe someone. Where does your passion start and end? Where do you find yours?

I’ve been doing a lot of collecting lately. Mostly in forms of information. I recently re-read all of my blog posts as well as all of the journals that I’ve ever written and have been trying to reflect on how I’ve gotten to this point in life. Constantly seeking answers and seemingly coming up short…time moves along.

I’ve been unemployed for about two months now and I’ve read 5 books, gone through multiple webinars, fallen into the void of the internet more times than I can count, watched more than 3 shows in their entirety on Netflix and at least a dozen movies, and as much as I’ve made progress, I still feel just as lost.

In the meantime I feel like I’m no longer even part of the world of the living. Perpetually stuck in limbo grasping at my next step. When I lost my job my world in LA shattered. And of course losing your job never comes at a good time, but it had to be when my parents set foot on the west coast for the first time in 20 years. I hadn’t seen them in at least 6 months. Shocked at the circumstances I knew the job I had wasn’t working. Having already made a job switch in February I was uprooting my “life” again. And now faced with a choice of staying or going back. My parents were in the middle of it.

At the end of the week, my parents left and for the first time I didn’t actually want them to go. That for me is a feat in itself. Then, I went back to New York because I couldn’t handle being alone or standing where I was. I discovered that I hate everything about “there” when I’m actually there, including myself. It gets romanticized from the outside, but from the inside it tears me to shreds. This now seems like my cycle, like a cat I have 9 nine lives and I’ve already used at least 4 so far. Not ever holding onto the me I was at different facets of my life, I go full circle yet never connect because there really isn’t ever a literal going back. Time moves along.

At war with constant change and what never seems to be the right change, the emotional turmoil turned inward. Going through interview after interview feeling stupid every time someone asks me what I’m good at… I think if you only knew the slightest thing about me. This is stupid. All of the hiring games so impersonal. Here take an IQ test. Here take this assessment. I play the games I get the interviews, I get ignored, I twist and turn mentally. I swear I ask myself daily, “what the fuck am I doing?!” Still making progress, committing to the relationship I have with myself, running out of money, another crappy interview with a company I don’t want to work for, time moves along.

I always search the past to fix the future and it never fully works, but I always progress. I try to exist without it and there’s nothing there. I fake the motions. I change the mental channel. I try to take in that which is actually helpful. Ever learning and searching. Creating and seeking the answers that I so desperately want to find. All I can ask is – what do I want? Well – I have no fucking clue what the answer to that is anymore.

One of the books I read talked about time. It said time is something you can’t hold onto. It’s only something you can spend. What does it mean that I don’t know where I want to spend my time anymore? Is it lost/lack of love? Lack of attachment? Or do I need to really just give myself time? Like a gift to figure it all out?

I’ve done so many things in life and I have so many more to do. Having been told I “have so much more power than I know,” by someone who’s opinion I highly value, I have to admit we all do. I get intense. I get heavy. I reel all day everyday. Happy. Depressed. Crazy. Passionate. Silly. Quiet. Loud. >insert Disney song< All of Life’s a game. The last two months have royally kicked my ass. I’m at a point I never thought I’d be. Attempting to be happy with any choice that presents itself whether in California or New York or anywhere in the world at this point I really don’t know anymore. I’m open to trying something I’ve never done because I want to achieve things I’ve never had before. And the one thing I know is time moves along.

So do I take another risk? Do I hold onto this one? Do I risk going back? What does life #5 hold for me? Where will that time be spent? Stay tuned.

It’s that moment in life when you’ve finally made significant progress and the same moment that screams at you – You’re not there yet!

I can say that most of us spend the majority of our week working at a job. Whether we like that job or not is the issue. Call me an idealist… but… wouldn’t it be nice to actually do something we’re passionate about rather than just taking whatever we have to, to get by and actually pay the bills?

I moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of a dream. I love my apartment, but it still hasn’t been made into “home” yet. I love LA/California, yet rush hour traffic on the 405 definitely leaves room for improvement. I like that everything is new, I like that I have a few friends but still have a lot of personal time comparatively speaking. I’m making more money than I have so far in life, yet I still stress because barely making it by is an understatement. My job isn’t terrible, but it is. I spend almost 4 hours a day in rush hour Los Angeles traffic. I beg for work at work and consistently have nothing to do (writing this at work now). My skills aren’t being utilized and my pay while may be the highest I’ve received, isn’t enough to actually live.

The progress I feel I’ve made in the last year has been great. The personal triumphs and the personal breakthroughs have been amazing. I’ve been taking more and more control over what I want and actively seeking my happiness. I’ve been putting the time, effort and energy into myself and it is paying off, but very slowly and that’s okay (progress is progress). Knowing that life is hard and I’m willing to work my ass off for it, I will always risk what I have if I don’t have what I want – in hopes of something better. So what now?

I’ve redone, updated, and sent out countless resumes. I’ve gone on multiple interviews. I end up either intimidating the interviewer or making them feel stupid (not intentionally). What do I have to do to finally land the position in which I may actually have room to grow and gain responsibility? What do I have to do to actually make enough money to live? What do I have to do to actually enjoy my life? And don’t even get me started on romantic relationships – that monster is a horse of a different color…

Why does everyone think that “hard work pays off” when the majority of people who work hard are the ones being screwed? Why is it that those willing to bust their ass aren’t the ones who are given a chance? What the hell am I missing here, because clearly it’s something big.

I get it, I’m a kid, but I still have more than adult sized bills. I get it, there’s a lot of competition. I get it, (again) life’s hard. But why is it so damn hard to the point where you have to kiss a company you aren’t sure you want to work for’s ass in hopes that you can eat that night? Why is this the world we live in? Is it terrible? Of course not. Am I sitting here asking myself if this post is even worth it, of course I am. Do I recognize that these are first world problems, absolutely. They are my problems nonetheless.

I’ve noticed something about movies and tv shows, they always wrap up life so nicely. Even when there are problems they only last so long or the viewers get bored… There’s always a little drama but the major things people tend to want, a house, a car, a relationship, a marriage, a family, a career, you name it – always seem attainable. Yes some of those things are materialistic but I’m talking about living, ya know paying for food to eat and actually having the money to do so as well as pay your rent. Yes, I know they’re made up stories. Yes, I know it’s a show/movie. Yes, I know time is a different animal in real life. But why is it that happiness seems to be the hardest thing to hold onto in a world where you don’t have it that terribly hard, yet you still don’t have the money to live? Why is staying happy one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do?

When does my life become something I live with pure enjoyment despite the bad? As much as I’m a dreamer, I’m still a realist. Life has bad parts, we get hurt, and sometimes shit sucks, it is inevitable, but when does progress actually reach fruition? When can you finally reach a point in life where you can say you’ve become successful? What about becoming happy? Does it or can it ever truly happen? Or are we all just reaching for a dream only found on screens in hopes reality isn’t that bad?

In a way it’s unrequited because they can never really and truly tell you how they feel. It almost doesn’t exist anywhere but in your mind. But it does exist. It is real. It’s real for you. Despite what happens secondly, initially they prove everything you believe.

All of it is crazy… you’re crazy to believe that they can love. They’re crazy to believe you won’t leave. You’re both crazy to think that it will last. And the shit you’ve dealt with because of each other is the icing on the crazy cake. I’m sorry but to me that’s love. It’s a leap of faith you take with someone never knowing how it will work out or if you’ll even come out of it alive. Feelings aren’t logical. Not in anyway.

Love makes you laugh, cry, hurt, ache for someone, get compassionate, feel sexy, be lusty, angry, stifled, everything. For one word to encompass all those things, in the world we live in don’t you think that trying to make it all work is going to be crazy hard? In a world people don’t know what they feel unless a facebook post tells them or they use a meme or emoticon, how are they supposed to really know love.

You have conversations and feelings and emotions that attach yourself to this person and they have no idea how to love you back. Relationships are hard. But loving someone shouldn’t have to be. The problem is we’re people and we fuck things up. We don’t know what we want and we’re conditioned to be and react the way we do from the minute we’re born. Our deepest darkest insecurities aren’t always known to ourselves until something major happens and it’s not always a bad thing to know. But until we know why we do what we do, how are we supposed to know how we feel?

We all have baggage. We all have demons. The only reason I stuck around as long as I did was because I thought our demons played well together. I thought if we could both see what this was and admit that we both wanted it, we could find a way to do more than make it work. But they never chose me. They never wanted me. I had to choose myself over a love like that because I don’t even get to live the game of faking it anymore despite us not being able to really and truly walk away from each other.

For any of this to actually work, you need them to want you and you want them to want you. When they treat you irrationally you get insecure and don’t know how to feel about it. Despite the love and the desire that exists it gets toxic because they can’t make up their mind and you’re there for the taking at any given moment mindfucking yourself.

They never thought it was in the cards. And it’s not because they keep throwing it away when it comes their way. It’s because they won’t take a chance on grabbing a hold of it. They won’t live it. How are they supposed to admit that despite all their better judgement and logic that they care about you and want you? They’re afraid and don’t know how. Their life has proven that it doesn’t work out. They have to find a way to be open to new possibilities and that things never happen the way that you expect them to, but they can’t anymore. What they believe becomes true because that becomes their reality. Lost in a haze of world they never wanted because they’re too afraid of taking a chance and being truly vulnerable.

I’ve been asked “why you” and I couldn’t answer other than by saying that I don’t want anyone else and I love you. But I have a question for you… why not you? Why is it so hard to realize that I wanted you, all of you. Sometimes that’s just not enough. Sometimes all of this becomes a crazy game that no one ever really wins. And it’s hard. Everything about it is hard. From the way you look to the way you see and react and feel and process. You can’t make them do anything they don’t want to but the truth is you don’t want them to be anything but themselves. It comes down to them allowing themselves to be happy with you because you know they care.

All of it could have been avoided had this been a utopian society but we’re mere mortals existing in a flawed environment. Life makes us and conditions us into the people we become and if we can’t believe that something will happen for us then it won’t. If we don’t think we deserve something we’ll never get it. We stand in our own way and hurt ourselves and others in the process. You get to the point where you love the other person but you’re so addicted you can’t walk away. You’ve become so conditioned to think you both deserve what you’re getting that you can’t stop. No one gives in. The feelings exist but they’re not enough. You find a breaking point only to step over it.

You finally, eventually, desperately get to some kind of end and hope to eventually move on. But the thing is, you still don’t want anyone else. And despite what it became, that’s not where it started or what it was in the middle. You broke it and each other in the process, but you can survive it. You have to choose to. It’s damn hard, and you may love that person forever, but you can’t spend your life trying to be with someone that doesn’t know how to be or want to be with anyone. So you find a way to pick up the pieces and life goes on. Until you fall again.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my life dreaming and imagining the places I could go and things I could do. I’ve done so many of the things I’ve wanted to do in life and I’ve done a lot of things I didn’t expect to do. I’ve accomplished a lot and yet nothing at the same time. I’ve loved and lost and will continue to do so until I find my “one.” I’m a dreamer. I’m learning that I’m a bit more of an idealist than I thought but that’s okay and I’m a logical realist. I wear many hats, but I’ve always had issues believing and I don’t mean in god.

I’ve spent a lot of my life being a confident person, but I’ve always had issues with self worth. Maybe it’s been the way I’m conditioned but it’s just part of me. I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety in different ways since I was a teen as well and neither are fun, but I’m still here and I’ve found a way to make my dreams somewhat of a reality.

I’ve been to 8 different countries. I’ve graduated from college with multiple degrees. I’ve lived in multiple states. I experienced almost everything I’ve ever wanted to do with some great people and have been in love twice. Recently I made a move I almost never thought I’d pull off, but I did it. I thought about it on and off since I was 10 and California was always my end goal… but I never committed to what I would do here once I got here.

It was always a dream, never a reality…until now. I’ve been looking for jobs and trying to make a career happen for almost 6 years without the luck of finding a job I really wanted to commit to or make a part of my life. I’ve spent the better half of a decade loving the “wrong person”and believing and having faith in the “wrong things.” They play a huge role in my life and I don’t ever attempt to take them back but I do question them but who doesn’t. I’ve been through a lot and will continue to do so, but now it’s time I start to believe and have faith in the “right things.” You know, the things I want to be real for me and my future. To take the life and person I want myself to be and aspire to be and make it reality. To have the love I want for myself and the place I want to have it all in happen. Things have a way of never working out how you expect them to but believing it could happen is half the battle.

I’m 3,000 miles from where I grew up yet I’m constantly reminded of a person I’ve known in my life for as long as I can remember. Peter Pan.

Everyone thinks Peter Pan is about the boy who never grows up. To me it’s about perspective. It isn’t about growing up but growing. The way you use your imagination to believe and have faith that what you can dream you can do is the point. If you don’t believe, it isn’t going to happen. When you doubt your own abilities you lose your freedom. When you look at the world through the eyes of a child you see an unadulterated view of society. An unjaded, curiosity that sparks possibilities and a reminder that life is really a game we all have to play. We have but a short time and we do change throughout. Not always for the better but it does happen. We forget how to be kids, and bask in the glow of the little things that make life great. The memories that put us on top of the world if even for a moment or the people that stood by us that may not be there anymore for whatever reason.

We are who we allow ourselves to become, but if we want to grow sometimes we have to grow down, not up. Life isn’t about who can pay the most bills. Life is about the experiences. The belief that “the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”

If you spend your life telling yourself you’re never going to make it – you won’t. I’ve doubted myself a lot in the last few years. I’ve fought with myself a lot in the last few years. I’ve lost a lot in the last few years. I gained an accomplishment of a dream I never thought I’d pull off and I have a potential job doing something I’ve wanted to do since college within arms reach. That job is mine, because I believe it is. That may sound silly but who cares. No one has to believe it but me. I may have done a lot of things I never meant to do but if I believe that they all lead me here, that’s what I believe. No one gets to take that from me. No one ever can.

I’m starting to relearn who I can be and imagine the future I’ve always wanted. Yes I go back and fourth and have doubts but I still believe I can pull this off. I still believe I’m going to be disgustingly happy here and I still believe that this is what I’ve always wanted. Did I have to leave some things behind, yes. Did I have to grow in the process? Yes. Was is hard, of course it was.

Nothing in life worth doing is easy echoes in my mind, but again it’s about perspective. As much as I still love the two people I’ve ever loved and have love for my friends, experiences, family members and those that have taken part in my life along the way so far, it doesn’t matter that they may not be in my daily life anymore, they’re still in my memory. They all play(ed) roles.

I am a lot of things, I’m ridiculous, misunderstood, intense and an ass sometimes, but we all have our moments. Life is hard but you have to believe. If in no one else you have to believe in yourself. If that means building a fort and coloring today then do it. If it means writing a proposal and making a presentation and getting that deal then do it. As long as it means something to you it means something. Those you love and choose to walk through life with should be the ones that believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself. Or at least be helping you build the fort because honestly if they don’t, they need to go.

Believe you’re worth it. Believe you can be and will be loved, cared for, successful, prosperous, alive, pretty, handsome, passionate, thoughtful, intelligent, anything you want and need yourself to be you can be. No one’s pretending it’s easy but you need to start somewhere. You have to believe first. Be worth it to yourself. If you can prove it to yourself, no one else will doubt it.

Don’t be hellbent on growing up, just keep growing and believe you’ll get what you want and see how your perspective changes along the way. Fairytales exist because someone believed they could…that is my point. Make your own. Find a way.

I’ve never been one to do well with feelings and emotions. More often than not I find myself repressing anything and everything and trying to push things like feelings away. For as long as I can remember I’ve had these issues and in the last two years that’s been beginning to change.

I’ve always been an intense kind of person. Willing to do what I need, when I need. To stand up for myself and to be the only person I can count on despite anything else. I grew up in a house that had married parents, one of the very few of my friends to have them. They loved me and cared about me as most do, but they couldn’t ever give me what I wanted from them. Acknowledgement and emotional support. Every step of the way from kid to teen to young adult I’ve tried to deal with the insecurities I’ve been harvesting my entire life. And I know I’m not alone in this.

I can finally admit certain feelings I have felt because of my parents, even though I completely understand that they’re only human and tried their best. But I think we all have mommy and daddy issues and some of us are just better at hiding or escaping them. At the end of the day I am allowed to feel how I feel. I am allowed to be angry and be hurt and feel sad or be happy or grateful or loved. It’s taken me years to learn that I am allowed to feel how I do and nothing and no one can take that from me because my entire life it felt like that wasn’t the case.

I’m the person who gets people. I look out for them. I’m loyal. I want with my everything to love and be loved and it is always at the expense of myself. It’s what I know. It’s what I’ve been taught by experience. It isn’t entirely a good thing and I know that but it’s a part of me.

I love the people that need to be “saved” and I build them up and let them in. I don’t consider them that but its the best way I know how to put it. I become their lifeline and they become my demise. It gets to such a point that eventually I break and shatter and am left unknowingly to pick up the pieces of myself by myself. Now I know what you’re thinking…I don’t do this on purpose. I do this with friends and relatives and people in general. I’m the person everyone tells their life story to. I’m the person everyone is semi intimidated by and then realizes I’m one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. But after years of doing this and not ever really knowing how to deal with my own feelings I finally started to change.

At that point I became the jerk or the asshole in my group of friends. It became my fault that things went badly or weren’t as they were to be expected. I was expected to act and be a certain way because well I had to. Problem was I couldn’t play the game anymore. I wasn’t about to hide how I felt because I needed to be okay with it. For the first time it was finally about me and that wasn’t okay with everyone else.

All of the insecurities I worked so hard to help others with, came shooting back in my direction at full force. I’m not blaming anyone, but again this is about how I feel. Life is hard enough. We’re all jaded in some way and we all need a little help from friends and those around us at some point. Everyone gets a little difficult to deal with at times but keep in mind everyone is allowed to feel how they feel. It isn’t about being PC or a pansy or a tough guy or anything else. We are all only human and maybe if people allowed people to actually be themselves then we wouldn’t be dealing with half the bullshit that we do. Maybe if we actually took time to figure out how we feel towards one thing or another we’d all make better decisions for ourselves.

Take it from someone who’s been destroyed a few times… someone that keeps trying to pick up the pieces… and someone who is still continuously learning about themselves even if its things that I already knew but life allowed me to forget… We have potential to do so many things and we have potential to feel so many things. I know I’m sick of feeling like I’m not good enough for everyone around me, but the things that bother people the most tend to be the things that keep coming back. We start to believe these things because they’re proven to us. We get to a point where we don’t know what to do or feel because we’ve even repressed ourselves. How different of a world do you think we’d live in if people actually lived up to their potential or truly believed in their abilities? What possibilities would we have? Why is it okay to stomp on someone’s feelings when it’s the only reason you probably reacted in the first place?

Everyone has a different role, everyone has a different perspective, everyone has their own feelings. So why isn’t that enough? Are we doomed to this cyclical reality despite changing our surroundings or does it take a lifetime of attempts to be the person we actually want to be?